Sports-themed games

[Obiwanshinobi]

Ever since Monkey Golf taught me not to ignore these, I've been less reluctant to give Blades of Steel a try. Always liked the name and now there just might be the right time to bite the bullet. Is the Game Boy version good?

Another question would be which NBA Street game (PS2 years) would you play if you could choose only one? Also, which version, assuming you've actually played it with various controllers (that I suspect matters most in this case)?

[soprano1]

The Mario Strikers game (football/soccer) on the Gamecube was fun with two players.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I'm afraid most team sports games are only half-good at best in singleplayer.

[Pretas]

Data East's Dunk Dream '95 is the best non-simulation basketball game ever made, hands down. While inferior graphically and aurally to its Neo-Geo prequel, the mechanics were greatly improved by making it a three-button game and splitting the Super Shot into three separate abilities with different meter costs, including a defensive move.

Sega's Beach Spikers is an oft-overlooked offshoot of the Power Smash/Virtua Tennis series, and probably the best volleyball game out there. It might be more well recognized if it had released on the Dreamcast instead of the Gamecube.

[BIL]

Cosmic Smash (DC) pwnz. Best digital analogue controls since DOOM's arrow keys.

[Drum]

The first stage of Nitro Ball is awesome.

[BrianC]

I like arcade style sports games quite a bit, myself. Lately, I have been playing the 3DS Mario Golf. I also recently picked up the N64 and GCN Mario Golfs and Side Pocket for GB. I plan to pick up Hot Shots Fore for PS2. I also found Mario Golf GBC, Mario Golf GBA, Tennis 2K2 DC, Mario Tennis GBC, Sports Talk Baseball Genesis, Side Pocket NES, Lunar Poll NES, Tommy LaSorda Baseball Genesis (not to be confused with the terrible Tony LaRussa Baseball), NES Open, Blades of Steel NES/GB, Tecmo Bowl, Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf Genesis, PGA Tour II Genesis, PGA Tour III Genesis, and Great Golf US/EU SMS (aka Masters Golf. Arnold Palmer Golf seems to the to be sequel and is called Super Masters in Japan) good stuff.

[President_Obama]

Hyper Sports and Track and Field.

[Ruldra]

I never gave a crap about baseball and found Baseball Stars 2 to be amazing. Unfortunately you need to constantly input credits to keep playing, and you can easily fool the AI into never hitting the balls you pitch. Still a great game though.

And of course, there's the classic Windjammers.

[Obiwanshinobi]

I never gave a crap about baseball and found Baseball Stars 2 to be amazing.

Hear, hear. Couldn't care less about tennis personally, but since I've got Virtua Tennis (and Monkey Golf), I wouldn't say no to a vacuum cleaning game by that-period Sega.
Unfortunately, Hyper V-Ball by Video System, no less, didn't do much for me, despite volleyball being one of few sports I enjoy watching and playing. The physics felt wrong.

[Shatterhand]

Hyper V-Ball is a shoddy port of the arcade game Power Spikes.
Go play Power Spikes. Its SNES port makes no justice. Power Spikes is a hell lot of fun.


IMO, most underrated unorthodox sports game ever: Brutal Sports Football



This game is pure genious. It was ported for the Atari Jaguar, so I guess that's why no one ever played it.

Freaking awesome.

[Pretas]

The first stage of Nitro Ball is awesome.

Strange Football is only the first stage in the US version. The Japanese version starts with Combat Field, which gives a smoother difficulty curve.

[No_not_like_Quake]

I dig Power Spikes/Video System's arcade games. Also Soccer Brawl on Neo Geo.

[Obiwanshinobi]

IMO, most underrated unorthodox sports game ever: Brutal Sports Football



This game is pure genious. It was ported for the Atari Jaguar, so I guess that's why no one ever played it.

Freaking awesome.

The pics remind me of Sensible Massacre. I'm having a distincly European day off at the computer.

[guigui]

Everybody's tennis for the PSP is very good.

[louisg]

Did someone say Speedball 2?

[Jonathan Ingram]

Does Unreal Tournament count?

Deathrow is one of my favorites:

IMO, most underrated unorthodox sports game ever: Brutal Sports Football

I played the Amiga CD32 version. Pretty cool game, but easily bested by the Mutant League duo for the Genesis.

[BrianC]

Hyper Sports and Track and Field.

Which also happen to be the exact same games combined for the US NES version of Track and Field.

edit: Actually, it combines the FC versions of both games, both of which only have four events. It appears one event in the JP Hyper Sports was actually from the Track and Field arcade game, as well.

[Damocles]

Mutant Leage Football/Hockey. Suck at sports? Murder the opposing team.

Also, Pocket Gal. Sexy right there.

[Moniker]

I spent a stupid fly amount of time in Mario Golf GBA. A treasure. Also, Virtua Tennis for the Dreamcast. Never played a better tennis game. Are there more recent Virtua Tennis games out there, btw?

EDIT: Mario Golf GBA, not Kart. Although I did spend an inordinate amount of time with Kart as well.

[Some-Mist]

the best game ever

barkley, shut up and jam: gaiden

Spoiler

[BrianC]

I hate to ask this, but are any of the Tiger Woods PGA Tour (or any game in the series past 3 for the Genesis, for that matter) games recommended? I played a little bit of 2005 on Xbox, but it seems to be a bit easy (I also heard the previous version is better). Mostly curious about the Wii versions that make use of Motion Plus. I found the Wii Sports Club golf to be pretty fun.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Keep waiting for a word about NBA Street series.

[BrianC]

I only played the first one on GameCube, but I like what I played of it. I also have V2 on xbox, but I haven't given it a good play yet.

[Moniker]

I hate to ask this, but are any of the Tiger Woods PGA Tour (or any game in the series past 3 for the Genesis, for that matter) games recommended? I played a little bit of 2005 on Xbox, but it seems to be a bit easy (I also heard the previous version is better). Mostly curious about the Wii versions that make use of Motion Plus. I found the Wii Sports Club golf to be pretty fun.

I had plenty of fun with my parents (only game I could get them to play) with the 2nd or 3rd Wii Tiger Woods. If you take their word for it, the motion controls are pretty close to real life. Eg, my mum always slices in real life, and she always sliced in the game, whereas my dad always has a slight draw both in reality and in the game. A lot of that was probably placebo effect, but it was damn fun.

Not a scratch on Mario Golf GBA, though.

[BrianC]

Video Olympics has a bunch of pong variations. A bit outdated, but still fun with more than one player. As far as 2600 sports games go, Tennis, Golf, Hockey, and Boxing from Activision are a lot of fun. The ports of Winter, Summer, and California games are surprisingly good, as well. SMS also has a good port of California Games.

Wario Land 3 has a fun golf mini game.

[Herr Schatten]

Although I have little interest in the sport itself, I always enjoyed Great Volleyball for the Sega Master System.

It's more of an action game than an attempt at some sort of simulation, but it's fun if you play with a friend, and even solo player mode is worthwhile. The computer opponent presents a steep challenge and winning the in-game tournament is far from easy.

The music starts doing your head in after a while, though.

[Lord Satori]

My dad and I used to be into a couple racing games. I've played a couple versions of Nascar as well as a GTA game. The Nascar one I played mostly cause tons of crashes, which lead me to play Destruction Derby 2, which is amazing.

Other than those, I've never been one for sports games.

[jandrogo]

Sensible World of Soccer 96/97, available for PC and Amiga. Best soccer game ever. Period.

[Pinehed]

I never gave a crap about baseball and found Baseball Stars 2 to be amazing.

Hear, hear. Couldn't care less about tennis personally, but since I've got Virtua Tennis (and Monkey Golf), I wouldn't say no to a vacuum cleaning game by that-period Sega.

I have a similar relationship with soccer. Couldn't give two shits about it in real life, yet my favourite sports games of all time are the aforementioned SWOS 96/97 (action) and Championship Manager 01/02 (management). I guess unlike some other sports it translates very well into the computer/console games medium.

IMO, most underrated unorthodox sports game ever: Brutal Sports Football

I played the Amiga CD32 version. Pretty cool game, but easily bested by the Mutant League duo for the Genesis.

I like the idea of these fantasy or futuristic football games, unfortunately I find them usually lacking in execution. The one I really loved was this sports management / real time tactics hybrid called Chaos League. If Brutal Sports Football depicted a more violent version of Aussie Rules or Gaelic football and Mutant League Football is obviously gridiron, Chaos League is basically a fantasy version of Calcio Storico Fiorentino. Very entertaining stuff and hillarious commentary.

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot a much older classic - M.U.D.S. aka Mean Ugly Dirty Sport for Amiga and DOS.